AMD Agesa ABBA with Boost Clock Fix Tested on Ryzen 3900X

[W1zzard]

AMD has finally responded to the Boost Clock issues on their Ryzen 3000 processors by releasing a fix for their AGESA BIOS firmware. We take a detailed look at the new clocking behavior and thoroughly test the update on the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X in our extensive application and game suite.

Show full review

 

[Aldain]

They crying will finally be over..

any news on the 3950x?

 

[Xuper]

%1 low and 0.1% low ? Steve Burke shows GTA V and Total War has improved.Did you check ?

 

[Sihastru]

Nice to see AMD addressing this issue. But there are still concerns about the voltages needed to achieve these boost clocks. Some of these concerns even stretch the discussion towards the voltage management at idle. Premature chip degradation and so on.

 

[GeorgeMan]

Nice to see AMD addressing this issue. But there are still concerns about the voltages needed to achieve these boost clocks. Some of these concerns even stretch the discussion towards the voltage management at idle. Premature chip degradation and so on.

Not at all. As long as the cpu is kept at auto/stock, it's gonna work as intended thus damage not happening.
It's good to see every bit of performance, no matter how tiny it is, to be gained for free. @W1zzard thank you for testing.

 

[Sihastru]

Except the reasons for relaxing voltages and boost clocks in the later previous BIOS'es were in response to these concerns. No motherboard manufacturer officially expressed these concerns, but voices from inside these companies did slip through the "cracks". Now that AMD moved back some of the offending characteristics of the chips in that dangerous territory, I would say that a discussion about these concerns is valid. Especially since there are territories where AMD CPU's have less then 3 years of warranty, 2, or, maybe just 1.

 

[Chomiq]

Nice to see AMD addressing this issue. But there are still concerns about the voltages needed to achieve these boost clocks. Some of these concerns even stretch the discussion towards the voltage management at idle. Premature chip degradation and so on.

Not unless they're feeding the CPUs with lots of current at that voltage.

 

[Frick]

So practically it wasn’t an issue for 99.99% of users.

 

[Sihastru]

Not unless they're feeding the CPUs with lots of current at that voltage.

Actually the effect of electromigration is tightly linked to voltage and then to current. High current will speedup the process, as it will increase power consumption, thus increase the operating temperature. And high temperature will increase the probability of occurrence of the phenomenon by several orders of magnitude. This started to be a somewhat moderate concern at around 32nm, one can imagine the devastating effects it can have at just 7nm.

 

[GeorgeMan]

To be honest I'll surprised that it actually holds some more mhz through the whole range of cores loaded. I was expecting only some mhz when 1-2 cores were loaded.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Nice to see AMD addressing this issue. But there are still concerns about the voltages needed to achieve these boost clocks. Some of these concerns even stretch the discussion towards the voltage management at idle. Premature chip degradation and so on.

FFS...
Hasn't this topic been discussed to death already?

Please see below, for an explanation as to what's going on and what you're not seeing as a user. So no, there's no concerns, just conspiracy theories that you keep feeding.

AMD AGESA 1.0.0.3ABBA Detailed, Fixes Zen2 Boost Issues

Just waiting for asrock taichi version to come out lol. So even though amd boost says max boost and max boost has always been single core. You want it to boost to two cores because that what you think it should do even though box doesn't say it? hmm lol. These days when everything is...

www.techpowerup.com

 

[GeorgeMan]

Actually the effect of electromigration is tightly linked to voltage and then to current. High current will speedup the process, as it will increase power consumption, thus increase the operating temperature. And high temperature will increase the probability of occurrence of the phenomenon by several orders of magnitude. This started to be a somewhat moderate concern at around 32nm, one can imagine the devastating effects it can have at just 7nm.

From my understanding is that this new design is highly dependent on current and not so much on voltage for degradation to occur.

 

[Aldain]

Nice to see AMD addressing this issue. But there are still concerns about the voltages needed to achieve these boost clocks. Some of these concerns even stretch the discussion towards the voltage management at idle. Premature chip degradation and so on.

Gamer nexus did the etsting, the voltages remained the same.

 

[TheLostSwede]

So practically it wasn’t an issue for 99.99% of users.

It might not have been an issue in terms of lost performance, BUT it was an issue as far as what AMD sold the products as.

 

[buggalugs]

Good job AMD.

 

[Noztra]

So the 9900K's power draw was measured at 3.6Ghz?

 

[Emanulele]

If you could actually purchase a 3900X... wonder if the 3950X will be released/announced this month at this point.

 

[TheLostSwede]

If you could actually purchase a 3900X... wonder if the 3950X will be released/announced this month at this point.

I can, from one local shop...
And yes, it will. Not my chip, but a friend of mine sent me the picture.

 

[bug]

There should be an additional benefit in that the cores will not boost as aggressively when presented with a light load. Which should curb power draw under regular usage. No idea how you'd test that, though.

 

[TheLostSwede]

There should be an additional benefit in that the cores will not boost as aggressively when presented with a light load. Which should curb power draw under regular usage. No idea how you'd test that, though.

My CPU seems to boost higher and more frequently than before, so not sure if your theory is correct there.

 

[bug]

My CPU seems to boost higher and more frequently than before, so not sure if your theory is correct there.

It's not my theory, it's what I read somewhere else (ars, maybe?).

Edit: Yup, it was Ars: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/09/amd-improves-real-world-boost-and-idle-on-ryzen-3000/

 

[HD64G]

Kudos to AMD for solving this problem that the board vendors' implementations in the UEFI migtht have created and to our @W1zzard for testing and rectifying that the solution implemented is working perfectly. I wonder what other topic some will find to oppose Zen2 CPUs market conquering. Especially with TR3 incoming with full force...

 

[Emanulele]

I can, from one local shop...

Good for you, in Ireland we are basically sol, not to mention with Brexit we will practically only be able purchase from Caseking.

 

[bug]

Kudos to AMD for solving this problem that the board vendors' implementations in the UEFI migtht have created and to our @W1zzard for testing and rectifying that the solution implemented is working perfectly. I wonder what other topic some will find to oppose Zen2 CPUs market conquering. Especially with TR3 incoming with full force...

Well, if a new AGESA was required, the problem was in firmware. Nothing to do with UEFI and its implementations.

 

[TheLostSwede]

Good for you, in Ireland we are basically sol, not to mention with Brexit we will practically only be able purchase from Caseking.

The British forgot about you guys, as their blue passports are more important...

Still, I can't remember any CPU ever being in such short supply, even more so here. It's far from the cheapest place to get computer parts and a lot of higher-end stuff is simply not available, even though much of it is made here. However, you've always been able to buy even the most exotic of CPUs here. All the regular computer shops and online stores have zero stock, some even removed the listings.

Kudos to AMD for solving this problem that the board vendors' implementations in the UEFI migtht have created and to our @W1zzard for testing and rectifying that the solution implemented is working perfectly. I wonder what other topic some will find to oppose Zen2 CPUs market conquering. Especially with TR3 incoming with full force...

Voltage, Voltage and Voltage...